Shakespeare entertained the king and the people for another ten years until June 19, 1613, when a canon fired from the roof of the theatre for a gala performance of Henry VIII set fire to the thatch roof and burned the theatre to the ground.
The audience ignored the smoke from the roof at first, being to absorbed in the play, until the flames caught the walls and the fabric of the curtains.
1613 - The 'Globe Theatre' burns during a performance of Henry VII when a canon fired on the roof sets fire to the straw thatch.
The transition from this rigid ecclesiastic spirit to a freer, more imaginative literature is to be seen in the lyric poetry inspired by the Virgin, in the legends of the saints which bulk so largely in the poetry of the 12th century, and in the general trend towards mysticism.
The disturbing and disintegrating element in the literature of the 13th century was thus the substitution of a utilitarian.didacticism for the idealism of chivalry.
The literature of the middle of the century was not wanting in achievement, but there was nothing buoyant or youthful about it; most significant of all, the generation between 1848 and 1880 was either oblivious or indifferent to the good work and to the new and germinating ideas which it produced.